This was written to a love interest and to myself, never to be shared with him but instead with anyone else who wants to read it ... maybe him, sometime. Who knows!

This, in essence, is actually written to my former self--for once we see something clearly, life finds it too boring to give us the same lesson.

Dear You & Me:

You think if you run fast enough you will break through the sound barrier that splices off all your past mistakes, all your imperfections. Something about that dogged activity attracted me to you, because I could relate. Well I’m not attracted to that activity anymore, even if, strangely, I am still attracted to you.

Do you think that because I know, because I can see through what you are doing, that I will hold you there? Well it’s not me who will hold you there, it is you who is doing it. And even still, I would accept you there, until you found out, even if you didn’t want to do anything about it; actually, even if you didn’t find out. You would change. We all do. Because life makes sure we come face to face with our imperfections.

There is no way to run fast enough, away from me, away from yourself, away from the truth.

Even if you crash your car into a wall, there is a last breath, and in that last breath is your limit. But don’t you see? That limit is right next to someone else’s? That is the only way we can relate to each other, to share the experience of our limits.

The pop culture of being limitless is strange and disastrous. Because we are limited, and therein lies our strength to open to each other and celebrate the lines that draw themselves around us, that did around the very two cells that joined when we were conceived. Limits. And expansion both.

They dance with each other. That is life itself. Limits. Expansion. Limits. Expansion. Nothing else, really. At least in the world of this what I am writing. There is nothing else except everything else.

Do you see what I’m getting at?

Stop trying to run away from something that will only expand you. Stop trying to stay so small. Because I still see you anyway. And in seeing you I won’t hold you there. You insist on staying there. It’s so lame, man. Come on, let’s get out of here.

I saw today that I am not in a box anymore. I never was and yet I only thought I was and I danced within this limitation. This trying to fit in and I trying to kick the shit out of it at it at the same time. Fought it.

A mental creation that was seeded in me. Like artwork. I made it my reality.

I obsessed about it like we do any form of art we love. But the time comes sometimes when we must ask “why do I love this?” Why?! Is it because it is familiar? Do we even still love it or have we come to a point where five years too long it was our favorite and there are so many other pieces of art out there waiting to turn us on. Waiting to make us wet with desire to become more than we are. Letting us know that we already are more. Are we just trapped in this past-tense version of who we are, reinforced by these old movies that play, memories that are by nature one-sided. Our sided. So stagnant and moldy like pieces of paper in an attic. Piles of shit that make us want to lock the door and pretend that part of our house doesn't exist.

I’m done with it. And yet of course here I am, sorting through it.

It’s a strange predicament. I want to break the sound barrier, and be more, live more! Yet I find solace in going in and sifting through things to make sure I don’t throw anything that I still need away.

If we just throw it all away, we lose the feelings and connections to ourselves that we have cultivated and we lose the emotional intelligence to connect in deeper ways with the people who could really reflect all of who we are. And the people who could benefit from our cultivated sense of humanity. If we dump ALL of it at once it is not going to make sense.

Don't be in such a rush to be a douchebag. Because it’s like we cooked a vegetable stock and we decide to dump out the stock in addition to the heat-drained vegetables! Slow down and be humble and don't strain your neck to be someone. Just chill out.

Take the time to strain the vegetables out and KEEP the stock. That is for your soup. That is for your future. That's for me too. That's for all of us! That is what will flavor the rest of your life.

Don’t say to yourself “Oh, that shitty family that raised me. Oh all this dysfunction in my past! Oh what a pile of shit I’m throwing it all out at once!”

Duh. Come on. The psychiatrist medicates you. The counselor listens to you. The motivational speaker turns you away from the whole kitchen. What I am saying is this. It’s simple yet painful to think about--but we create 99 percent of our pain by being afraid of what is actually NOT so painful once we just face it. Walk into the kitchen, look into the pot, grab a strainer, dump the contents over a container, and throw away the bits that have nothing left for you. Because what you take with you, you will see, THAT makes the future worthwhile.

That is the stamina. That is the grace, that is the reason for the white hair and the wrinkles on your face. Take it. You earned it.

Do you have a secret relationship with someone alive or dead, famous or infamous? Do you have that special someone that--through movies, books, hearsay, any way--you met and just know that the relationship would be socially unacceptable?

Do you have that special someone who, if everyone knew they were special to you, in the way they are to you, could launch you into the front seat of a bus to the mental institution?

I do. And that person is Andy Warhol.

I have several love interests who exist in alternate dimensions. But Andy is top. He won't be anything else. He just won't. It's not his nature. He is top. And so to be close to him, it is my nature to keep him there.

I finished Andy’s philosophy book the other day, a book I took on many dinners alone to feel close to him. I don't feel alone actually. With his words, I feel closer to someone than I have in a long time ... if I was ever so close to anyone at all. I will reread it for comfort and research his other books.

He is an opinionated genius of few words and many brilliant ideas.

I need someone opinionated in my world. Someone who doesn’t fall over. He doesn't. He doesn't know how. He is such a lovely, lovely man.

I don’t care what it gives me to admit it because it has already given me so much to tap into it. His essence. He was so generous to express it, so brave, so absolutely pure and real about what he was seeing. There is so much love in it. But it is not a love that is expressed with the expectation of understanding what it means. That--I am discovering through spending time with his essence--is not really love at all. Love is sacrificing everything at its very alter.

Love is actually often discovered through incredible bouts of rejection, abandonment and neglect by society--so much so that one is forced to dig in another direction. Deep inside themselves they find it, more than a massive hope diamond--it is a light to the world. It is the authentic self expressed with increasing clarity over time.

And everything that it is exposed to it turns to art.

There exists controversy around how Andy treated people. But I wonder how other people treated him. If you look at how I treat people, it isn't always nice, but it's honest. It's usually nice, don't get me wrong. But everyone, whether famous or hiding in a cave in India, acts on their own volition. Everyone hurts someone else just by being themselves. The key is to know that you must be yourself, in connection with your highest purpose, which is a love of your life itself, enough to risk and save it, no matter what.

Andy's work is so open to interpretation that it might naturally attract ego-driven analytical opinions that I feel would strangle the point. So let my ego offer another one. I think he is okay with me doing this.

The point is that there is none. The point is actually just to feel. To register what is going on and to integrate that into your view of reality without having to spew logic around it and box it in and expect an award for "figuring it out."

I offer Andy's electric chair prints as an example. I mean, what a statement. Here it is: an electric chair. In all colors. Spend TIME with it. Sink INto it. Find out what it really means to be with this thing. How does it feel to know it exists? How are we as humans to feel when we know this thing exists?

He doesn’t at all expect you to feel like he does. Because you will never really know. In fact, inside ourselves, our feelings and opinions age and change like cheese. So if we opine, we are locked in the past by that very act.

Andy gives space to enter a concept, and through what he does and doesn’t say, does and doesn’t write, does and doesn’t paint, does and doesn’t create, he just invites you to it.

He is SO out of the way.

When I read his writing, it inspires me so greatly. I see that he is not in the way … he is unabashedly sharing his thoughts, his world, his POV. And it’s generous in what he DOESN’T say.

He doesn’t expect you to feel anything. He LETS you feel everything around what he is saying. He doesn’t prompt you. He allows you.

It’s magical how he is.

Here is a Campbell’s soup can. Look at it. I mean, spend TIME with it. Understand it. What does it mean to YOU? How does it make you feel? The familiarity, the brand, the WAY it is. The reality of it; how it impacts society … the impermanence of its appeal. Almost as if it was vintage while it was popular. That is the Campbell’s soup can, to me.

I am exploring his mindset. He shared it. He made it so obvious yet so out of reach, but when he is your closet obsession, you start to understand it ... a little and enough to catalyze something inside. This is the generosity of an artist at its best.

Along this trip so far, I have been so blessed with simple yet gorgeous experiences. Have also been settling down into myself after a long while of distractions. Friends and family, from the outside, would expect a person to be basking in ecstasy and gratitude, yet I admit, I am juggling those sentiments with real feelings that come when you have been neglecting them. These tend to come up when we finally relax.

I'm not one to stay down or high, to revel in any emotion so much as feel it and let it pass--but I do realize that I haven't really had time for a lot my feelings in my hard-driving life back in Doha, and that if I am to do what I came here to do (create authentic works of art and write authentic words and simply express in creative ways what is true unto my world) I have to give the whole range of feelings, reflections, experiences, thoughts, a chance to sit at the table as much as possible.

I am fortunate. This is what is happening. This is why I planned to be here in this month, despite my mind wanting so much explanation and still, sometimes protesting (even if it immediately realizes it can't turn the tide and keenly shuts up). It's chilly and reflective and rainy here in Florence, and the overcast brings everything, everyone's expressions, all the siesta-closed-for-business signs into striking perspective for this new alien resident. The darkness enfolds a lot of daylight still.

I purchased this recording on a whim a little while ago. It just keeps on coming in handy. Here's a little taste and tribute (again, it's just a taste--her whole talk is actually hilarious and cathartic beyond my ability to explain ... it's just so good, I love her soul so much!):

"If what I'm talking about today in 'enlightened society' is a process rather than a goal, then the process is of lots of us being brave enough to feel and be and then touch into the lineage of all the people who have ever in the past, present, and in the future, been brave enough to go, to this place. And it's like washing dishes, you don't just go once, to this place, it's a way of living, it's a way of continually awakening and deepening, further and further.

And if you don't keep tending the garden, the weeds grow back. But then, just like when you love your flowers and all the bees and birds that come around, you tend it with such gentleness and love. So love is a big ingredient in the whole equation. Love. Love, appreciation, gratitude, kindness, all of the heart guidelines.

I have discovered all of those qualities so much in this raw and vulnerable place, of feeling what we feel with a sense of 'this is basic goodness; there's nothing wrong here.'

There's nothing in this view of meditation all together--when properly understood--that is corrective. It's not about improving or making yourself better. It's about being fully, genuinely, human and who you are, but without the spinoff.

And even with the spinoff, like when I say, when you catch yourself and just feel what you feel, even if you're two hours into the spinoff, or four days later, it's never to late, you know, to feel, and be in touch."

It's all relative around here. Once you land, figure out the power outlets, find a cute little Persian rug knockoff at the grocery store and get a load of the valet service and your first paycheck, you sink deeper and the place just starts wrapping its tentacles around you.

You still feel like you control your appendages ... your thoughts, your wherewithal.

Only when you've been operating in the arms of this friendly but powerful sea monster of a society for quite a while--and a new person comes, naked, wide-eyed, dumbstruck drifting down past you eye level--do you get a sense of what has happened to you.

The person floats there, looking around, the hairs dancing above their head, their cheeks buoyant. And then up behind them comes a shadow. The water between your eyeballs and the leviathan's procession grows thin. You witness: the same moment you remember so long ago happening to them. You remember: when it first touched you and eased itself around your waste, curled its tentacle tips atop your head and into your palms, ran its smooth skin along your calves and placed its tender micro suction cups atop your feet.

Some days, you do realize, somehow, you can't move as freely as you once did, but in other ways are strengthened to ten times your original ways--it all depends on what it sees in you, what it lets you do, helps you do and prevents you from doing, this society here.

It's not some small, benign member of the deep sea world, this one. It's got some heft. But underwater, everything becomes kind of relative to how elusive it can make itself, how well it navigates and commands it endless turf, how deeply it spends its time.

And a power like this runs deep--what with its tribal history and its recent run into riches. It lays low and reaches out only for the select of us who somehow saw it for what it was, once upon a time, when we dove in head first, toward the shiny objects related to this expat experience.

Again, we are not privy to the view of what is actually happening to us, until the occasional new person gets gripped before our eyes. They look at us, watch us, wonder about us.

They seem to ask us: How can we go on like this? Don't we have any shame, about those designer shoes, vacations, electric guitars, speedboats, lovers, self reinventions and "I won't be in today, my flight is delayed from the weekend in Moscow."

We look at them like cats, wrapped in tentacles, turning our attention just for a moment from our fancy feast dishes.